( AP )

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Panama’s president in a face-to-face meeting Sunday that the Central American ally must reduce alleged Chinese influence over the Panama Canal area or the Trump administration would take “measures necessary” to do so.
Rubio, on his first foreign trip as America’s top diplomat, held talks with President Jose Raul Mulino, who has resisted pressure from the new U.S. government over Panama’s management of the waterway that is vital to global trade.
The U.S. State Department said in a summary of the meeting that Rubio had informed Mulino that President Donald Trump believed the current situation at the canal was “unacceptable and that absent immediate changes, it would require the United States to take measures necessary to protect its rights” under a U.S. treaty with Panama.
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